It’s a bit bigger and a lot less graceful than the HP Envy 120, but Epson's Expression XP-750 packs so much more into its compact chassis – starting with the paper. There’s a main A4 tray at the bottom, a photo tray above it and a further input area at the back. There’s even a CD-printing tray tucked neatly in the base, ready to be slid into place when required. See all printer reviews.

At first it’s tough to see where anything comes back out, but then the motor whirs into life and a solid output tray glides right out of the front like a tongue. In daily use, waiting for the output tray gets a bit annoying, but it’s a minor criticism of a well-equipped printer. See also Group test: what's the best multifunction printer?

WiFi setup was quick and simple – although we did have to enter our security key manually onto the 8.8cm touchscreen – and we were printing snaps from our iPad over AirPrint within minutes. And this printer is fast: we measured normal-quality mono pages at 9.1ppm and colour at 7.9ppm, with a 6 x 4in photo coming out in 1 min 20 secs and an A4 photo in just under three minutes.

It’s those photos that are the XP-750’s main selling point. It uses six separate ink tanks, including light cyan and light magenta especially for images, which resulted in perfectly accurate colours and a bright, vibrant tone that puts it ahead of even the Canon Pixma MG6350 for photo quality. We’d happily put its prints on our wall.

Text output isn’t so hot. Characters had softer edges than the best printers here, and solid areas of black came out greyish, while images on plain paper didn’t really leap out at us. This is very much a home photo printer, not an office device, and it comes with the kind of high price you’d expect. We’ve found it online for closer to £150, but with running costs of 2.5p for mono and 10.9p for colour pages, it’s not a cheap choice.

Still, it achieves what the Envy 120 doesn’t: it retains the quality of a multi-ink system and the flexibility of multiple paper trays in a body that’s neat and compact. It might not be as attractive, but it’s a better choice for serious photographers.